At the Shrine of Your Lies
by Penelope Grace
Summary: She went to his church by accident. Tomione.


**A/N: Yeah, yeah. I did write a Hermione as you-know-what in The Mirror. This time, I'm going to be flipping it around. Just cause. . . The Mirror is based more on Ancient Greek Mythology. At the Shrine of Your Lies is going to be more Catholic-ish, but I'm totally going to butcher this. And I'm probably offend a lot of people. Who are Catholics. Or religious.**

 **This one is where Tom is a saint.**

 **And the title is because of Hozier's "Take Me to Church." I love that song, btw.**

 _I._

It started raining on the day she killed her father.

He wasn't even a good man. Ever since Hermione was a newborn, he was in jail for assault, robbery, and attempted murder. He was the kind of person who the victims would never forget and society would rather bury. He got out when she was nineteen years old. It was only by chance she caught him touching her little half-sister with her pajama pants down while she was staring fearfully at the wall. It was obvious to Hermione he has done this before.

Beatrice was only eight.

Hermione only saw a flying red rage in her vision when she took one of her many shiny mathlete trophies from the bookshelf and slammed it across the back of her father's head. He fell over Beatrice's bloody pink bed.

Hermione moved closer, her arms raised again. She slammed the trophy down again and again and again. She snarled, "YOU. DON'T. EVER. TOUCH. MY. SISTER. EVER. AGAIN." Every word was punctuated with a hit.

It was the fourteenth hit where Hermione felt the strangest sense of bright clarity she had never felt before. It was shining bright, and it felt _brutally good_. She was powerful as she lowered the trophy again and again. Unstoppable as she smelt the metallic tang of blood. She had never felt more awake before.

"Hermione?" whispers Beatrice, half of her face covered in blood.

Hermione froze mid-hit. She totally forgot about her little sister. She dropped the trophy. It bounced once and landed face down at her feet.

"I'm scared."

Hermione's heart pounded. She briefly glanced at the clock. 4 a.m. There was time. Time to fix this. She said, "Go take a shower, Beatrice. He will never hurt you again." A pause. "I'll take care of this."

Beatrice stood still.

"Go!" frantically whispered Hermione.

Beatrice quickly nodded. She ran into the bathroom.

Hermione examined the room. There was blood all over the walls. A good portion of the bed was drenched with her father's blood. And of course, her father himself. She didn't even need to check his heartbeat to see if he was alive. His head was a mangled mess and brain matter was scattered all over her trophy and the floor. The rug needed to be replaced. She needed to show up to class by 10 a.m. It only gave her less than 6 hours to clean up her mess.

She had to move. Now.

First, she ran into the other spare shower and cleaned herself off. Giving clean clothes to her sister, she took the bloody pajamas and shoved them into the trash bag.

Pulling on her large kitchen apron, she wrapped her father in Beatrice's rug. She grabbed a few trash bags from the kitchen, grunting as she wrapped the cocoon. Lugging her father's plastic-covered body carefully, she pulled him to the garage where her car was waiting. She stuffed the bloody apron into a sealed trash bag. Hermione quietly thanked whoever was out there that she could do this without the neighbors seeing. She open the trunk first and shoved him in. She dropped into Beatrice's and her bloody clothes, all carefully placed in several layers of plastic bags.

"Beatrice?" Hermione peeked into her own room where Beatrice was settled into her bed. She was clean, bloodless, and quiet. Hiding underneath the covers.

Her sister blinked owlishly.

"I'll be back later." Then Hermione pivoted.

She took out all the bleach and other cleaning products she had and started with the tiny blood splatters she accidentally dropped while rushing to the shower. She washed the showers and then hit Beatrice's room. She yanked off the bed sheets, placing them in trash bags. She wiped down the bed frame and took the trophy itself to the car, all wrapped. She scrubbed the walls.

No evidence.

No trace.

Nothing at all.

Once the room was cleaned and all evidence in the car, Hermione climbed into her sedan and drove. She drove at the speed limit, her headlights beaming. She knew that if the police ever investigated, they might check out the house. For clues. When she had more time, she was going to throw away the furniture and give Beatrice's room a brand new look. Strip the walls, redo the carpets. Buy a huge rug. Her heart pulsed calmly in her chest.

She glanced at the clock. 6:57 a.m. She was down to 3 hours to hide the body.

She drove towards the pier, thankful for the rain pouring down on them. It definitely reduce visibility in case anyone was watching. Holding her breath steadily, she heard a loud bang and began cursing rapidly at her bad luck in the form of a flat tire. She pulled over by a small church, examining her tire and wondering what could had broken it.

She shivered in the pouring rain. She was looking more and more like a drowned cat as she opened her truck and dug for a flashlight. It was probably under her father's dead body.

"Miss? Are you alright?" said a smooth voice.

She froze, her voice failing her. She was standing in the open with a stranger and her murder victim in the back of her truck with the murder weapon.

"Miss?"

She was so dead.

She slammed the trunk a little more forcibly than she should had. "Perfectly alright," she lied, her teeth chattering.

"You are cold and you have a flat tire. You can barely see anything!" he pointed out. "Come into the church before you catch your death."

She paused and realized he was right. A small part of her hoped she didn't see anything, another part hoped the rain would go away, and another part just knew that he wasn't going to just leave her out in the open. A priest doesn't just do that.

She followed the tall black figure into the small building, her arms wrapped around her and her hair glued to her face in wet strands. Water dripped to the wood floors as she breathed in the heavy smell of burning candles lighting up the nave. Rows and rows of pews were neatly facing the front where the priest would sermon.

She heard the wood doors close behind her. They did not close silently but with a note of finality.

"Congratulations on finding this church," the priest said behind her. "Not many find sanctuary in here."

"This church is Catholic?" She approached something that looked like a huge closet. She had seen enough tv to know what it was. Confession.

He chucked, almost wry in a way. "You are not a believer?"

"Atheist."

She passed by a mural lit up by many candles. It depicted a rather handsome man in the process of being hanged. Another man with an aging beard was knotting his rope.

His footsteps were quiet as he neared her, scarcely seven feet away. "That is Saint Tom."

"He died by hanging?"

"Yes. This church is Saint Tom's Church." He passed her and pointed to a bronze statue of a similar looking man stabbing a young girl. There was a clear look of terror etched into her face. "There is him again." He pointed to a strange black mark of a skull with a snake hissing from its mouth. "That is the mark of Saint Tom."

Hermione stared long and hard at the statue. She asked questioningly, "I thought saints were supposed to be good."

"Well, the Catholic Church liked Saint Tom because he killed those who worshipped the Pagan gods. He publically repent the sin of murdering but condemned the followers of the Pagan ways."

"I see." A note of disdain slipped into her words.

"He was raised in a Catholic orphanage, abandoned their by his father who worshipped the Celtic gods. When he grew older, he found his father and murdered not only him but his family and household. That girl was a handmaiden of his grandmother."

"How did he get caught?"

"Some neighbors heard the screaming and captured him. They said he prayed to God for seven days and seven nights before the villagers decide to hang him." A pause. "The stories always say he never showed fear or spoken a word when they wrapped rope around his neck and pushed him off the platform."

She shivered. Her father didn't scream while he was being murdered, but still didn't mean she couldn't get caught.

He moved around her, and moving almost naturally, she followed him to the altar in front of the cold and unfeeling statue of Jesus Christ on the cross. His eyes were closed, and the crown of thorns poked into his forehead. Hermione could almost see the tiny beads of blood running down his cheek. Candles among candles swarmed around the statue like forming a fire-lit shield.

"Do you know what he was saint of?" The man's voice seemed to whisper directly into her ear, even though he was still facing the statue like her.

Hermione couldn't breathe.

"Murderers and lost children." And for the first time, she was able to see the priest quite clearly. It was the same face on the mural. It was the same face on the statue.

Saint Tom.

She must be crazy. Or dreaming. Perhaps she died and she couldn't remember her death.

He quietly noted, "Not many find this place, but if they did, they were always murderers and lost children. It's always the fathers they murder."

His implications were crystal clear now.

"I—" She had no will to deny it.

"Your father. He perhaps didn't abandon you and your sister physically, but he has left a long time ago in spirit." He turned completely around, facing her.

She was frozen, entrapped in his power, as she moved closer to the altar. To be towered over the statue in front of the altar and by the man standing to her left.

"And like me, you enjoyed the kill." His mouth brushed a few strands of her hair. "How did it feel, _Hermione_?"

Fuck. He _knew._

The answer flew out of her mouth. "It felt good," she breathed. Her eyes locked upon the sorrowful face of Jesus. He would not look at Hermione now. Blood tainted her hands. A sinner through and through.

"You, like me, will get caught, you know." His fingertip softly curled underneath her chin. She didn't look at him, still frozen. "But you seek something, don't you?"

"Deliverance from the crime. Protection for my sister. She is not one of yours."

"But she is a lost child, though not a murderer like you, yes." He tilted his head. "Deliverance for you is not a issue. Protection for your sister? That requires a price."

"I'll pay it." Her eyes were hard on him. "Whatever it takes."

"Then you sacrifice yourself on my altar." He gestured to the mahogany table in front of her. "Lie down."

"What?" The word came out strangled.

"You said whatever it takes. For protection of your sister, Beatrice."

She shivered. It was creepy how he seemed to know so much about her. But beyond that word, she was too entranced to not protest against his order. She sat the one end of the table and began to lie down. Her head met the flat wood, and her wet hair spilled over the edge of the other end. She took in the dark roof above her, noting the dancing shadows in the nooks and crooks. No ceiling. Just endless darkness.

He moved quietly around her, kneeling down. A gentle hand circled her ankle and wiggled off her right boot. Then her left.

"What are you doing?"

"Marking you as mine." His palm ghosted up her shin and outer thigh, sending tiny thrills of pleasure and anticipation up Hermione's spine.

"But I thought I am?"

A dark smirk answered her. "What an inquisitive mind."

But then he unbuckled her belt and pulled it off. He pushed down her shoulder when she tried to sit up. Tutting, he said, "No. Unless you want to stop?"

That was the curious thing. _She didn't._ But she couldn't understand how she got here in the first place. She couldn't understand that her jeans were slipped off and his fingers were ghosting over the edge of her knickers near her hip. But she could understand that there was power here and something in the back of her mind told her every moment here was real. His words were final.

Deliverance.

Protection.

Promised.

His fingers worked to unbutton her blouse, starting from the bottom and working to the topmost button. Then his hands snaked underneath her and unclasped her bra. Her clothes bunched up at her shoulders, and her knickers were slowly pulled off.

She squirmed as she realized the front of her was completely bare in the closed gaze of Jesus Christ. She did not know why it sent a secret burst of delight and excitement nor did she know why the saint was chanting in Latin.

But she held her breath as the saint dragged her legs down over the edge of the altar until her bare sex was barely on on the altar. She grasped both ends of the altar when he murmured more Latin as he spread her legs apart. He pressed against her aching core once, then twice, then thrice.

Surely, he could tell how eager she was to be _the sacrifice_.

He felt along her inner thigh, tickling sensitive nerve points she didn't know she even had. He pressed his palm tightly near that aching spot, a warm burn emitting from where his skin meets hers. Then he removed it and stepped away, leaving her bereft for his touch.

"Amen," he breathed. "Amen, amen."

"Amen," she said, echoing. Her eyes widened at him. He looked almost as if he was glowing in the shadows.

He pulled her up so she was sitting on the edge of the altar. Standing over her, he maneuvered her aching body onto his. She sat on his lap as he ripped off the remains of her clothes, the pieces dropping to the stone floor. She was naked as the day she was born in front of a saint and the crucified statue of God's son.

The saint pulled his legs up the altar, moving them to the center of its smooth surface. He ordered, "Straddle me. Eyes on His Son."

Facing the statue, she moved back on lap until her ass cheeks felt the rock hard press of his erection. She was disappointed by the barrier, the clothing, between them, yet sought his heat anyway.

He gripped her hips tight, and wetness pooled from her cunt as she heard a belt slip off and a zipper unzipped. His tip brushed her entrance once. Then twice. Hermione's mind went blank as she longed for—hoped, prayed—his member to sink into her so deeply so she could feel every bit of him.

"Believer." He nipped her at where her throat meets her shoulder.

She gasped, her body simply melting. She sank onto him, feeling every centimeter, every inch glide into her. She impales herself on his dick.

"Devotion." His hand covered her breasts, large enough to fit in the palm of his hand. He grabbed it not-so-gently, the pain awakening Hermione.

She had never felt more alive until now.

"Rapture," he purred, his finger twisting her nipple. His other hand forced her to lean against him, her wild hair threaded between his fingers.

Then she moved, pulling up and taking the brunt of him. Her leg muscles stretched as she sought her own release. Only instinct was guiding her, encouraging her to seek her peak. Sweat poured from her temple. It was almost as if the candles were burning her.

"Covenant." Hermione's head was pulled back and she arched into his brutal, searing kiss. It lasted much shorter than she hoped for.

Her eyes found the Son once more. This time, His eyes opened to her. He did not judge. He _saw_ this fornication. He _witnessed_ this sin.

Hermione's mouth parted, her very skin burning.

"Conviction," he told her, the saint smirking against her.

She instantly knew what that word meant, as if she had unlocked some sort of knowledge she knew but could not find. She looked up into His eyes, His gaze blank. She understood completely. This would not save her. It would doom her forever. Forevermore in the services of the Saint. This was the last point she could stop and never return.

She clamped down harder on him, seeking her own release. The friction inflamed her desires. She gasped as the world turned black around her in the force of her climax.

"Regenerated."

Then she knew no more.

 _II._

"Miss Granger," reprimanded some familiar voice. "Miss Granger!" A sharp tap of a ruler on the table immediately shook her dazed state.

"Huh?" groggily said Hermione, her head blinking against the blinding fluorescent light.

Her professor frowned at her, but moved back to the front of the classroom and continued lecturing about chemical bonds at the subatomic level. Hermione couldn't give a single shred of attention to the lecture, and the rest of the class flew by in a blur.

It was only when she got home did her senses returned to her. Beatrice's room was different, for reason. She stared at it for a good hour until she realized the walls were painted a different color, the sheets were changed, and the trophy. . .

The fucking trophy she won years ago.

The one she used to kill her father.

It was glimmering and winking at her from its perch on the shelf, the harsh tips of it undented and pointed.

She backed away from the room and retreated into her own. She climbed and curled into the corner of her room, sitting on her bed. Her skirt flipped up, and Hermione's eyes widened.

Permanently branded into the skin of her right inner thigh, so close to her cunt, was a black mark of a snake coming out of a skull's mouth. The mark of Saint Tom.

Her hand pushed away her underwear, letting her see the full brand. She quickly pulled out her compact mirror from the nightstand and sat to examine herself once more. The snake brushed against the lips of her entrance. Her index finger tapped on the skull.

She saw nothing.

She heard his voice.

 _Deliverance._

 _Protection._

 _Regeneration._

 _Amen._


End file.
